


From 'If' to 'Yes'

by philalethia



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, Fucking Machines, Humor, Kink Exploration, M/M, Porn, Rope Bondage, Sex Toys, Sexual Fantasy, Tentacles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-01
Updated: 2014-07-01
Packaged: 2018-02-07 01:56:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1880751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philalethia/pseuds/philalethia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock snoops in John's pornography and is intrigued by what he finds. Or: tentacle porn without the tentacles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From 'If' to 'Yes'

**Author's Note:**

> Because of how lightheartedly Sherlock's behaviour is treated here, I feel I should emphasise that you should never, ever: 1) violate your partner's privacy by going through their pornography (or any other belongings, for that matter), and 2) spring a kink/BDSM scene on your partner without discussing and negotiating it first.
> 
> Also, this story includes a brief mention of rape fantasies and a discussion about the degree of consent given (or lack thereof) in most animated tentacle porn. Please skip or skim if you think this may be distressing or triggering for you.

Sherlock had always derived a certain amount of… John hesitated to call it _pleasure_ , since that came with connotations that weren’t entirely accurate, but… well, a certain amount of _something_ from sampling John’s pornography.

Even when they’d been only flatmates, Sherlock hadn’t been shy about trampling all over John’s personal boundaries by hacking into John’s computer to peruse not only the videos John had saved to his hard drive but the ones in his browser history as well. Sherlock would watch them when he was bored and sulky, when he was in the midst of a post-case high, when he was alone, when John was sitting not even a full metre away.

Then, inevitably, Sherlock would feel compelled to comment on them.

In fact, that had been the catalyst for their transition from work partners to romantic partners.

John had returned to the flat after a shift at the surgery, and Sherlock had all but pounced on him, wide-eyed and manic, and demanded, “You have, on no less than 14 occasions, insisted that you are not gay, yet of the 47 gigabytes of pornography currently stored on your computer, 13 gigabytes of it are either ‘gay’ or feature a solo male performer.”

And then he’d stood back, lips tight, with his chin lifted as though to say _Explain_ that, _why don’t you?_ There had been just enough smugness in his expression that John had rather relished the opportunity to point out the glaring flaw in his logic.

“I said I’m not _gay_. Not the same as saying I’m straight, you realise.”

Sherlock had stared, his eyes going narrowed and squinty. He’d always been able to tell when John was enjoying something at his expense, and he’d always hated it.

“But, you know,” John had continued, clamping down on the urge to smile, “people’s porn preferences don’t always correspond to their sexual preferences, so… you shouldn’t always go jumping to conclusions, yeah?”

Their first kiss had been less than an hour after that—and a bloody nightmare it had been too, quite literally, with Sherlock cornering and lunging at him and John completely misunderstanding his intentions and clocking him in the nose, very nearly breaking it.

It had ended all right, though. And although the experience hadn’t put Sherlock off snooping—unfortunately, John suspected nothing would accomplish that—it had at least taught him to ask about what he found, properly, instead of just acting on it.

*

“I don’t have breasts,” Sherlock announced at breakfast one morning.

It said a lot about their relationship, John reflected, that he wasn’t even fazed by the non sequitur. He swallowed his mouthful of tea, then set the cup down beside his plate of eggs before he answered. “Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

Sherlock refolded the morning paper in a dramatic flourish and set it aside.

“In the last week, you’ve added three new videos to your collection of pornography. All of them feature pale, dark-haired women with disproportionately large breasts. My skin is pale, my hair is dark, but I don’t have breasts. Will this be a problem?”

John rubbed his forehead with a grimace. “Please tell me you’re not monitoring my downloads, Sherlock, because I swear to god—”

“If it is a problem, then there are several shops online catering to the cross-dressing and transgender communities where I could purchase fairly realistic breast prostheses. Well, I say ‘realistic,’ but not having seen them in person—and having extremely limited personal experience with breasts—I can’t say with absolute certainty that—”

“ _Sherlock_ ,” John said, and Sherlock shut up immediately and simply stared, his face blank in a way that John suspected was carefully crafted. “I’m not…. You’re reading too much into it. I didn’t go looking for pornography with big-breasted women.”

The bridge of Sherlock’s nose wrinkled. “Not consciously, perhaps. Now, is there a particular shape that you prefer? I could provide you links to the sites I found, and you could bookmark the options that most appeal to you.”

“No,” John insisted. “No, that’s… no. If _you’re_ interested in breast prostheses, that’s fine, I’ll give it a go. But otherwise, I honestly don’t care. Understand? I _don’t care._ ”

Sherlock peered into John’s face for several seconds. Then, when he’d evidently determined John was being truthful, he nodded once.

John nodded back. “Good,” he said, and speared a bit of egg with his fork.

*

“Talking?” Sherlock asked.

Although it startled him, Sherlock’s voice from behind him when he’d thought he was alone in the bedroom, John contained his reaction. He stepped calmly back from the wardrobe, letting the clothes he’d gathered in his right hand swing back to their original positions. Sherlock had rearranged them by primary colour again, which had made it difficult enough to find what he was looking for when John had occupied the upstairs bedroom. Now that he’d moved into Sherlock’s, thereby mingling their clothes, it was bloody impossible.

“Talking?” John echoed, turning around.

Sherlock was wearing his burgundy dressing gown over his pyjamas, and his hair looked far too tidy, considering he’d spent the entire day lying about the sofa. “Yes. How do you feel about it?”

“Erm. Well, it’s not a bad way to spend time. Course, it depends quite a lot on who you’re talking to, but—”

“Not _that_.” Sherlock huffed, his shoulders drooping dramatically as though he were horribly disappointed in John’s dimness. “Talking in the context of sex. ‘Dirty talk,’ I believe it’s commonly referred to as, yes?”

“Dirty talk,” John said, only mildly surprised. It was far from the most unexpected thing Sherlock had ever said to him. “It’s all right. Depends on what sort of dirty talk it is, I suppose.”

“Of the pornography clips and videos you’ve viewed in the last six months, 67.7% have included some degree of it, indicating a preference for it in pornography at least.”

“Oh Christ, you’ve made a spreadsheet, haven’t you?”

Sherlock ignored the comment. “You said that pornography preferences don’t _always_ correspond with sexual preferences, thereby implying that some of them _do_ correspond. Is this one of them?”

 _Ah_ , John thought. Of course Sherlock was still on about that. “Maybe a bit,” he admitted.

Sherlock’s eyes narrowed, and John felt the uncomfortable itch of that calculating gaze and laser-sharp focus sweeping over him.

He wondered, not for the first time, what Sherlock was seeing.

After a long second of observation, Sherlock spoke. “So if I were to tell you that, at this moment, I want nothing more than to be bent over and fucked like the shameless tart that I am… you would enjoy that?”

The back of John’s neck felt warm. He rubbed at it, licking his lips, and didn’t bother to pretend he wasn’t savouring the mental picture that made. “I might do, yeah. Then I might tell you that you’re _my_ shameless tart and make you get on your knees and beg for my cock.”

“Hmm.” Sherlock tilted his head, seeming rather more thoughtful and less turned-on than John had hoped. “Interesting.”

Then he spun on his heels and left the room. There was a bounce in his step that said he’d got what he had come for and was quite pleased with himself.

John sighed, disappointed, then carried on searching the wardrobe for his jumper.

*

About a week later, Sherlock turned off the telly so he could ask, “Sex in public places?”

To which John answered, already reaching for the remote control, “Not on your fucking life.”

A week after that, Sherlock shouted through the bathroom door while John showered, “Rope bondage?”

“Only if you’re the one tied up,” John shouted back.

He was becoming gradually accustomed to being hunted down and interrogated on his porn preferences, the same way he had grown used to being texted about the effects of various injuries on the human body or how long it would take a corpse to decay under certain conditions.

Until the next morning, that is, when Sherlock strode into the kitchen while John was doing the washing-up and asked, “Tentacles?”

John paused, startled. “Come again?”

“You have two full Japanese films of animated females engaged in sexual activity with some form of cephalopodic entity, in addition to a small collection of clips in your browser history. Your search history indicates you discovered these videos by searching ‘tentacles,’ which clearly indicates an affinity for ‘tentacle porn,’ as I believe it’s called. Does this affinity extend beyond pornography?”

John’s cheeks went hot, and he hastily turned off the tap and then dried his hands while he pondered his response.

For the first time since Sherlock had started on this little investigation into John’s porn, John felt self-conscious, even a touch ashamed. He’d forgotten about the tentacle porn, honestly, which he’d looked at on a whim and found surprisingly appealing. Well, at least until his searches had started turning up the violently non-consensual scenes—not his cup of tea, never had been—so he’d abandoned it. That had been at least two, maybe three months ago.

“Well, I’m not sure how it can extend beyond porn,” he finally said, facing Sherlock. “It’s not like there are a wealth of available tentacle monsters in the world.”

Sherlock peered at John with the same hungry intensity he sometimes got when he was interviewing witnesses. It was unnerving. John wanted to fidget, but held himself straight and still.

“And if there were?” Sherlock asked.

“If there were… what? Would I want to be fucked by one? Watch someone else get fucked by one?”

John considered it. Assuming that the hypothetical creature weren’t dangerous, that he and whoever else involved were comfortable with the proceedings… but no, John couldn’t even envision that. It was too far outside the realm of possibility.

“I don’t know, Sherlock. What does it matter?”

“You hesitated,” said Sherlock, in his _aha!_ tone. “You deliberated and then hesitated. Interesting.”

With that, Sherlock whirled around and swept into the living room, where he threw himself in the desk chair and returned to John’s computer. To continue snooping through John’s porn collection, no doubt.

It probably should have bothered John more than it did.

Rolling his eyes, John turned back to the sink.

*

“Ah, now I see.”

John, hovering on the cusp of sleep, lurched violently at the sudden low voice from his left, but thankfully identified it as Sherlock before he followed through on the instinct to defend himself.

“Remember when we talked about acceptable reasons to wake me up in the middle of the night?” John slurred, squinting through the darkness to find Sherlock’s form beside him.

Sherlock was curled on his side atop the duvet, obviously not intending on sleeping tonight. John could see his wide eyes glittering in the light from the window.

“You weren’t asleep,” Sherlock said. “And it’s hardly the middle of the night.”

It was after well midnight, which as far as John was concerned was very much the middle of the night, but he said nothing, letting Sherlock carry on without protest.

“Animated pornography involving ‘tentacle monsters,’ as you called them, seemed incongruous with what I know of your personality and your sexuality.”

“You just can’t leave off, can you,” John muttered, becoming more alert as the seconds passed, but Sherlock paid him no attention.

“You mentally project yourself into the media you consume—when the protagonist is in danger, you display all the physiological signs of fight-or-flight response, and so on. Presumably, you do the same with the pornography you view. So: the female or the ‘tentacle monster’? Definitely not the female. By your own admission, you dislike being restrained, as the female always is in the videos you’ve downloaded, and although you enjoy the _sensation_ of being penetrated, you’re ambivalent about the _idea_ of it—therefore, unlikely to watch porn and get off on the fantasy of being fucked.”

John wondered how long Sherlock had spent pondering this before coming to his conclusions. Probably a matter of minutes, but perhaps John’s psyche had puzzled Sherlock for an hour or two. That was a pleasant thought.

“The tentacles, then,” Sherlock continued. “But you’re a proponent of enthusiastic consent. And although the females in your videos certainly seem to enjoy themselves by the end, initially they are quite reluctant. It’s possible you simply didn’t realise this, as the videos and clips are all in Japanese and, considering your perpetual struggle with modern technology, I doubt you managed to figure out how to work the subtitles.”

John hadn’t even known there were subtitles, in fact, but he hadn’t really needed them. Tone and body language had been enough, and he’d skipped past all the bits where the consent was dodgy.

The animation had also helped. If it had been a real woman, even one shamming at reluctance for a short period of time, John doubted he’d have been able to get off at all.

“Of course, rape fantasies are common,” Sherlock said matter-of-factly, “and, in your particular case, might appeal to your need for control and your attraction to dangerous situations.”

Bristling, John propped himself on his elbows, scowling down at Sherlock through the darkness. “I don’t have a ‘need for control,’ and my ‘attraction to dangerous situations’ doesn’t include—”

But Sherlock only spoke louder, easily drowning John out, the loud-mouthed arse. “But that’s not it at all, is it? You’re not only a soldier, but a doctor as well. A caretaker: you want to fix people, help them. And with an affinity for dirty talk—tell me, John, do you imagine that you’re talking her through it?”

Suddenly John was quite relieved that the room was dark. That way, he couldn’t see the details of Sherlock’s expression, and he could at least pretend that Sherlock couldn’t see his.

Because Sherlock was, as always, correct. That was precisely what John had imagined: The woman—young or older, blonde or blue-haired, clothed or not, the films and clips had varied on those sorts of details—needed him. She was overwhelmed and scared, but she didn’t want it to stop, it felt too good, she only wanted something to ground her in the hurricane of sensations bombarding her, someone to tell her it was okay to be enjoying something so wrong.

 _Christ_ , John thought, cringing. This was why he usually avoided dissecting his sexual fantasies. He was a bloody pervert, wasn’t he?

“Lie down, John,” said Sherlock. His voice was low and fond, nearly a purr.

After a moment of hesitation, John obeyed. Sherlock straightened from his curled not-quite-foetal position and shimmied closer. John could feel Sherlock’s rhythmic exhales warming the arm of his cotton t-shirt.

“Is gender significant?” Sherlock asked, in the same purring tone. “If, for instance, _I_ were at the mercy of such a creature….”

John barely even had to consider it. Sherlock being held down by a bunch of tentacles, stuffed full from both ends, moaning happily around the tentacle in his throat while John swept the fringe from his sweaty forehead and told him to stay still and let himself be used like a good boy, that it was okay, that John would look after him—

“Hmm,” Sherlock murmured, sounding smug and cheeky. “I see.”

He reached beneath the bedsheets and pawed at John’s pyjama bottoms. John’s legs fell immediately open, leaving space for Sherlock to palm his hardening cock.

Sherlock huddled closer, kissing John’s shoulder while his hand slid precisely where John wanted it. “Any objections to having your prick sucked before I leave you to sleep?” he asked.

John had no objections at all.

*

John suspected that, now Sherlock had uncovered the reason behind John’s foray into tentacle porn, he would lose interest, and indeed he seemed to. Not a word was mentioned about “cephalopodic entities” afterwards, and in fact, nothing further was mentioned about John’s porn collection at all.

Instead, Sherlock gained a sudden enthusiasm for carnivorous plants and spent hours searching the internet for more advanced equipment that he could use to monitor the three _Drosera_ species that John was (grudgingly) allowing him to keep in the flat.

So John carried on, gradually forgetting about the whole business with his porn collection.

Until he came back from Tesco one afternoon to hear an odd mechanical sort of sound echoing throughout the building. He stood just inside the door a moment, listening, and then began to slowly climb the stairs.

The noise certainly sounded as though it were coming from his and Sherlock’s flat. In the direction of the kitchen, or maybe the bedroom. Perhaps one of the pieces of equipment Sherlock had been interested in had been bought and now delivered. And if that was the case, it was a wonder the noise wasn’t accompanied by Mrs Hudson’s raised voice—because strange sounds from 221B never ended well, she’d learned not to suffer them.

John reached the top of the staircase and juggled the shopping from hand to hand so he could open the door and then carry the bags to the kitchen table.

Now he was inside, John could clearly hear that the mechanical sound was coming from the bedroom, muffled somewhat by the closed door. Although not muffled enough that he couldn’t also hear the very familiar, always intriguing noise that accompanied it: gasps and bitten-off groans.

He hadn’t even known that Sherlock owned any sort of sex toy, much less one so loud, but he must have done. There couldn’t be any other explanation for the symphony of sounds filtering through the closed bedroom door.

And, Christ, wasn’t that a delightful image? One that John was quite keen to see, but only if Sherlock didn’t mind.

Would Sherlock mind? Hard to say for certain. Some days, for instance, Sherlock thought it perfectly acceptable to barge in and out of the loo while John was using it, and other days, John accidentally leaving the door cracked just a hair while he had a piss put Sherlock in a snit for hours.

And the last thing John wanted to do was interrupt and ruin Sherlock’s private wank session.

He’d no sooner begun to wonder when the groans cut off, replaced by a shouted “For god’s sake, John, don’t just stand there. _Come here!_ ”

John wasted only enough time to shove the eggs and the milk haphazardly into the fridge before he hurried down the hall and threw open the bedroom door.

And then promptly froze, stunned by the scene that awaited him.

Sherlock, nude, on his back in the centre of the bed. The duvet had been peeled away and shoved aside into a pile to the left of him, and a tangled mess of ropes had been strung from the headboard to his arms and legs, winding around them and holding them aloft in what had to be a truly uncomfortable position, the kind that led to spectacular muscle cramps.

At the end of the bed stood a massive metal machine with a long, thin arm that stretched across the length of the mattress and pounded relentlessly in and out of Sherlock’s arse.

John had only ever seen a fucking machine in porn. In person, it was a great deal more intimidating than he’d imagined. Louder too—the noise itself was similar to the whirring of a blender but with the volume of a hoover. Apparently the walls of the flat were thicker than John had realised; it hadn’t sounded nearly so imposing before he’d opened the door—or perhaps, more likely, his shock was simply making him hypersensitive to it.

“John!” Sherlock gasped, which shook John from his stupor and uprooted his feet from where they’d felt glued to the carpet.

He rushed forwards, taking in Sherlock’s flushed and dripping skin and his heaving chest. Sherlock’s eyes were wide, unblinking, and his entire body seemed to seize with every plunge of the machine’s arm inside him.

Questions shot through John’s head like missiles. What the hell was Sherlock doing? Where had he got a sex machine? How had he got a sex machine, without John knowing about it? Who had tied him up? How long had he been tied up, lying here being buggered while he waited for John to return?

Yet, when he opened his mouth to ask, somehow the question that popped out was “Jesus Christ, Sherlock, how much did this cost?”

Sherlock didn’t even seem to hear him. He sucked in a mouthful of air and then bit his lip, dropped his head back, and let out a long, stuttering wail that struck John harder than a blow to the solar plexus. He wouldn’t be able to think at all if this went on much longer.

John left Sherlock’s side to examine the machine. It took a few seconds of fiddling, but finally he managed to locate the speed control dial and turn it off. The arm slowed to a stop, and John slowly, gently eased the end—on which a pale, average-sized, realistic-looking dildo was attached—from Sherlock’s arse.

“No!” Sherlock said. His head snapped up, and he stared at John with a mixture of alarm, disappointment, and indignation. “No, John, don’t—”

“I’m not having this conversation while you’re lying there being fucked by a sodding machine,” John snapped, returning to Sherlock’s side to study the rope binding his limbs.

Sherlock was breathless, his voice shaking, clearly still at least half in whatever state he’d worked himself into, yet he managed to protest. “What conversation? We’re not having a conversation.”

“Yes we fucking are.”

It turned out that neither Sherlock’s arms nor his legs were properly tied. They’d just been slipped into loosened loops of nylon rope and then twisted to give the illusion of being tightly tied. They were easily freed, and the knots binding the ropes to the headboard were easily undone. Sherlock had done it all himself, clearly, needing nothing more than a fair amount of flexibility and cleverness, both of which he had in spades.

His limbs freed, Sherlock let them flop onto the bed with a sulky expression. John waited a moment to see if any of his muscles would cramp, but he showed no sign of pain or discomfort. His breathing was gradually slowing, his flush fading and sweat drying. Although, John couldn’t help but notice, he still had quite an impressive erection curving towards his belly.

“I think I’m right,” John said eventually, “in saying you meant for me to find you like this, yeah?”

Sherlock pursed his lips and nodded tersely.

“Okay.” John licked his lips thoughtfully. “So… why?”

Sherlock’s responding huff was one of disgust, so much so that John wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d made an even bigger show of his exasperation and flopped onto his side away from John, but he stayed more or less in the same position.

“Tentacles, John! Obviously. It may not be possible to obtain an appropriate cephalopodic creature, but it is possible to create a similar enough scenario. Restrained by black tendrils”—Sherlock waved towards the ropes—“at the mercy of something that doesn’t care a whit about my pleasure”—he kicked towards the fucking machine—“it’s all the same, isn’t it?”

It was only the years they had spent as friends, and now quite a lot more, that enabled John to hear the genuine uncertainty beneath the waspish tone of the question. And that was enough to convince John to swallow the whole of the lecture he’d been prepared to give, about how very badly things could have gone wrong with Sherlock alone and tied up and impaled on a massive electric machine.

But then it didn’t matter, because Sherlock barrelled on before John had a chance to say anything.

“Clearly I needn’t have bothered, if this is your response to my taking an interest in your sexual proclivities. Fine. We can continue having subpar sex and—”

“Our sex is _not_ subpar, Sherlock. It’s not even close.”

“It’s less interesting than it could be.”

John wasn’t even sure about that. “Interesting” could mean a lot of things John wasn’t keen on. He let a sigh communicate his disagreement.

“I even bought a tentacle-shaped dildo for the occasion, you know,” Sherlock said.

He rolled to his side, reached for the duvet, and shoved it aside, revealing a partially empty bottle of lubricant and a blue dildo. He grasped the dildo, then rolled back over and thrust it towards John so confidently that John accepted it on instinct.

It… well, it did indeed look like an artfully curled tentacle, albeit only the tip of one, with two columns of turquoise-coloured suckers. John tapped at one experimentally with his thumb; it did actually feel a little like a real sucker. Or at least what John imagined a sucker would feel like. The toy was a bit squishy, rubbery in texture, and its entire length was smeared with lubricant.

“The machine’s phallus is permanently attached, unfortunately,” Sherlock said, flopping back down. “But I started with that.” He nodded at the toy in John’s hands. “It proved quite beneficial in helping me achieve the appropriate state of mind.”

John stared down at it, pictured Sherlock’s tight pink arsehole opening around it. There really wasn’t any reason the dildo should affect John any more than the one attached to the fucking machine—this one was only shaped and coloured a bit differently, after all—and yet.

Arousal bloomed like a drop of black ink on paper, blotting out everything else in its path.

“This was inside you?” John said. Even he could hear the desire in his voice, deep as the sea, so of course Sherlock could hear it as well.

Sherlock blinked, looking faintly startled. But pleasantly so—of course, since he was getting exactly what he wanted. “Yes.”

John didn’t even stop to think about what he was about to do. He simply lowered the tentacle to Sherlock’s mouth and brushed the tip over his lips, which parted immediately so John could slip the first inch or so inside.

Sherlock’s eyelids fluttered closed, and he tipped his head back, opening his mouth wider as he took the toy in deeper, sucking at it like it was particularly good, thick prick. His cheeks hollowed, his throat worked, and John’s cock began to harden and strain against the confines of his trousers. It was a gorgeous, dirty display.

John slipped the tentacle out and, when Sherlock arched up and tried to chase it, was caught by a wave of lust so strong it made his knees go weak. With a hand on Sherlock’s collarbone to keep him down, John set the toy on the bedside table.

He thought quickly. He had what looked to be four black nylon ropes, a proper standing fucking machine, a tentacle dildo, and Sherlock staring up at him in silent supplication—what exactly did John want, and how did he want it?

“Will you be all right here on your own while I go fetch something from the living room?” John asked.

Sherlock’s forehead wrinkled, but he nodded.

“Good. I’ll be back in a tick.”

Fortunately, John had used the scissors just that morning and thus knew precisely where they were. Probably not the ideal tool for cutting through rope, but they would work in a pinch. John retrieved them from the desk drawer and carried them back to the bedroom.

The lines on Sherlock’s forehead had deepened, although they disappeared when he spotted the scissors in John’s hand, and his expression shifted to one of intrigue.

“If I hurt you,” John said, setting the scissors beside the toy and gathering up the four ropes, “tell me.”

Then he proceeded to tie Sherlock up.

Differently than Sherlock had tied himself, though. Sherlock’s wrists he bound together, then attached to the headboard so Sherlock’s arms were stretched above his head. Next, he bent Sherlock’s knees, shoved them up by his chest, and tied each ankle to each thigh. Not quite as uncomfortable as stringing a rope from the headboard to each ankle, as Sherlock had done, yet it still tilted his hips up and bared his arsehole, which was dark pink and faintly puffy from the fucking it had already received.

“All right?” John asked. “If it starts to hurt or get uncomfortable, let me know and”—he tapped the handle of the scissors—“I’ll let you loose.”

Sherlock’s adam’s apple bobbed, and he inclined his head. His erection, John noticed, hadn’t diminished at all. John spared a moment to curl his fingers around it and followed the thickest vein up the underside with his thumb, stopping at the fraenulum to trace feather-light circles over the sensitive skin there. Sherlock jerked against the ropes with a startled whimper, and his cock grew even harder in John’s hand.

 _Jesus Christ_ , John thought, _you perfect creature_.

When John loosened his grip and stepped back, Sherlock’s limbs jerked again, but he didn’t protest.

The final rope John wound carefully and loosely around Sherlock’s chest and stomach, entirely for aesthetic effect. The black was a stark contrast to Sherlock’s pale skin, and when it was wrapped entirely around him rather than just restraining him, it somehow made the ropes look more like tentacles to John’s eye. Sherlock was cradled in them, cherished, yet utterly at their mercy.

In short: perfect.

After checking all four ropes, ensuring they weren’t too tight or positioned so they could cause injury if Sherlock wrenched at them, John again allowed his gaze to linger on Sherlock’s arsehole.

“Did you use any slick at all?” John asked. He reached around Sherlock for the lubricant, uncapped it, and squirted a liberal amount into his left palm.

“As little as possible,” Sherlock said, as though there were nothing wrong with that at all. “I thought it best to remain true to your fantasy. If, after all, a true ‘tentacle monster’ existed and were intent on buggering me, it would surely dispense with—”

John sighed, rolling his eyes. “That’s what makes it a _fantasy_ , you berk. Now hold still.”

Sherlock’s hole was warm and made looser than usual by the machine, although it clenched around John’s lubricated finger, drawing it in deeper. Sherlock hissed, and his calf muscles tensed, straining against the ropes.

“Sore?” John asked.

Sherlock nodded, but his expression—slack-jawed, his eyes half-lidded and unfocused—didn’t look pained at all.

“Good sore?”

Another nod, followed by a breathy groan as John slipped a second finger alongside the first.

“Tart,” John told him fondly.

Sherlock responded with another soft moan, which became a long string of moans as John continued to get him open and wet. When he was finished, John pulled his fingers out and, on a whim, wiped them across Sherlock’s chest, making the stretches of bare skin between the rope gooey and sticky. True to John’s fantasy.

Sherlock squirmed, trying to arch into John’s touch, and growled in frustration when he couldn’t do so. “Just get on with it,” he said. Although it was probably meant to sound commanding, it came out more as a feeble plea.

John loved it when Sherlock pleaded. He couldn’t quite reign in a grin. “You’re fine,” he said. “This isn’t about you, remember.”

Still, John was ready to get on with it as well, so he abandoned Sherlock’s body and approached the machine waiting at the end of the bed.

“How did you manage to turn this on when you were tied up?” John asked idly, hauling the base back into place before beginning to position the arm. It extended and retracted like a typical crank—reminded him vaguely of a bicycle pedal, actually—and to reach Sherlock all the way up by the headboard, John had to extend it as far as it would go.

“Turned it on first,” Sherlock answered. “Before I bothered with the ro— _oh_.”

His entire body tensed, tried to surge off the mattress, when John eased the tip of the dildo into his hole, which thanks to John’s work was sopping wet with lubricant. The toy slipped in without resistance, and Sherlock’s head fell back, his chest heaved, and he strained against the ropes so forcefully John could see them begin to bite into his skin.

“You put this thing into you,” John said, sliding in the last few centimetres until the flared base of the dildo was flush against Sherlock’s arse, “while it was _moving_? Idiot. No wonder you’re sore.”

Sherlock exhaled shakily, still tugging at the restraints, and didn’t answer. He looked utterly rapturous, staring blearily at the ceiling, as though he were in the midst of some out-of-body experience. John had never seen him so affected by penetration.

This, John thought, was going to be _fantastic_.

“All right?” he asked one last time, to be certain, and waited until Sherlock nodded his assent.

Then John turned the fucking machine to the lowest speed. It surged to life with a mechanical groan, and its arm retracted, withdrawing the toy until only the tip remained inside, before it plunged forwards again.

John watched for a moment, ascertained the machine was running smoothly and safely, and then climbed onto the bed beside Sherlock, all but tearing off his clothes as he went.

By the time he had joined Sherlock, propping his back against the headboard and leaning into Sherlock’s side, Sherlock’s whole body was strung like a taut wire. Every inhale was a gasp, every exhale a cry.

Tender protectiveness welled up in John like smoke, making his throat feel tight and his mouth dry. He wet his lips, curled his arms around Sherlock’s trembling frame, and nuzzled Sherlock’s cheekbones, kissed his temple. Immediately, Sherlock leaned into him—as much as he could, anyway, which was little more than a tilt of his head and a twitch of his nearest elbow.

“It’s okay,” John told him, his voice soft and soothing. “I’m here.”

“Faster,” Sherlock gasped. “It isn’t—it’s—I can’t—”

The pace was quite slow, John reflected, and the thrusts were weak. Much slower and weaker than John was capable of, when he had Sherlock’s hot, tight arse clenched around his cock. In fact, the machine was using so little power that the whirring of its gears, the slow crank of the arm, resembled more of a sick whine than the rumbling-motor sound John had heard on the staircase.

Actually, now that John thought about it, it was very, very easy to pretend it wasn’t a machine at all making the sound, but some sort of creature revelling in the tightness and the heat of Sherlock’s hole, fucking into it with its long, thin arms while Sherlock grunted and took it.

“I know,” John said kindly, kissing his temple again and tasting the sweat gathered there. “I know, but don’t fight it. Just let it have you.”

And just like that, the tension spilled from Sherlock’s body like water from a broken dam. He relaxed into the restraints and tipped his head back with a deep, throaty moan and just let himself be fucked.

“There we go,” said John. “That’s it.”

Then, leaning across Sherlock’s chest, John grabbed the tentacle dildo from the bedside table.

John hadn’t even settled back down before Sherlock’s mouth was open, waiting, and his tongue extended in a clear invitation.

“Good,” John said, letting the adulation positively drip from his tone. “Very good, Sherlock.”

Laying one hand on the back of Sherlock’s neck for support, he nudged the toy’s tip between Sherlock’s lips and inched it into his mouth. Sherlock’s eyes squeezed shut, and John could see the muscles in his throat contract as the tentacle scraped the back of it.

“That’s it,” said John, watching Sherlock’s expression turn pinched as he fought the urge to gag. John stroked a thumb soothingly along his nape. “You’re safe with me. Just let it use you.”

Sherlock strained against the ropes, taking the tentacle in deeper, and moaned.

It went on like that, John easing the dildo out and then plunging it back in. The noise of the machine’s motor and Sherlock’s choked groans faded into the background, leaving the slick sounds of Sherlock’s mouth sliding along the length of the tentacle to take the front stage.

It was glorious. Sherlock’s lips stretched thin around the girth, the turquoise suckers gleaming and slickened with saliva. John never wanted to stop.

Then he noticed that Sherlock’s eyelashes had grown wet with tears, and panic wiped all else from his mind.

“Shit.” He removed the toy, doing his best to both be quick and gentle. “Sorry. Are you all right?”

Sherlock blinked at him. Although his eyes were glassy with tears, he didn’t seem distressed at all.

 _Reactive tears_ , John thought with relief. Understandable, he supposed, with the gagging.

With a weak, hazy nod, Sherlock opened his mouth to respond just as the machine thrust in again, and the only sound he managed was a weak, startled cry. His cock, John saw, was so thick and red it looked painful. As John watched, it twitched and dribbled a thin stream of clear precome onto Sherlock’s belly.

“All right,” John said, letting go of Sherlock’s neck so he could card his fingers sweetly through Sherlock’s curls. “You’re okay, aren’t you? It feels good?”

Sherlock managed another feeble nod, raising his head as though to nuzzle John’s hand although he couldn’t reach so far.

Speechless—Sherlock was speechless, past the point of verbalising thoughts. Perhaps even past the point of thinking coherently. John couldn’t remember Sherlock ever being in such a state before, which was… satisfying. Very, very satisfying.

So John filled Sherlock’s mouth with the tentacle again and fucked his throat until there were not only tears rolling down his cheeks, but snot and drool as well. His face was soaked, the skin growing puffy and patched with pink, yet still he moaned like a greedy whore as he gagged himself again and again on the tentacle’s thick, curved length.

“That’s it,” John murmured. “Just stay calm. I won’t let it hurt you.”

Sherlock blinked, sending two fat tears dripping down his left cheek. Another four or five stayed pooled in his eyes, making him look defenceless.

And that was it. John couldn’t stand it any longer.

He withdrew the dildo—Sherlock grunted in disappointment and looked positively gutted when John tossed it aside—so he could crawl to the edge of the bed and increase the speed of the sex machine. Just a bit, only a couple notches on the dial, but it was enough that Sherlock jolted with a gasp before going limp in his bindings, letting loose a long, whining moan that John couldn’t help but echo.

He returned to the head of the mattress and wrapped his arms as best he could around Sherlock’s shoulders, pressed his lips to the corner of Sherlock’s jaw, savouring the taste and scent of sweat and tears and sex that clung to his skin. Sherlock’s muscles leapt with every thrust of the machine, his body swaying back and forth as he was fucked.

John wished the machine could be operated from a distance, so he didn’t have to move to change the speed. So he could lie beneath Sherlock, holding Sherlock to his chest and burying his face in Sherlock’s fringe. So they were both rocked by the rhythm of the machine, Sherlock’s body heaving into his, Sherlock panting and crying into John’s skin, the two of them sharing sweat and spit while Sherlock clung to John like a frantic, desperate man in a storm.

“Please,” Sherlock said suddenly.

The word was considerably garbled, only barely understandable, and that even more than the sentiment made John’s cock, utterly neglected thus far and consequently swollen and throbbing like a burn, ache distractingly.

“Please what?”

John laid one hand on Sherlock’s thigh, felt the muscles trembling beneath the skin—growing tired after being strained by the ropes, John thought—and trailed his fingers up near Sherlock’s balls. They were hard, full, and probably felt fit to burst. Sherlock whimpered at the teasing touch, but he didn’t try to arch into it.

Far past the point of even attempting to take his own pleasure. _God_. John shuddered and bit back his own whimper.

“Touch it,” Sherlock said. Less garbled than his previous plea, but still weak. His eyes were half-lidded and hazy, still red-rimmed and wet. He was helpless, so helpless and needy that John ached to sooth him. “Please—it—”

John shushed him gently. “Shh. It’s all right. I know what you need.”

John rose to his knees so he could cradle Sherlock’s head against his chest, raking the fingers of one hand through Sherlock’s sweaty curls while the other closed around Sherlock’s erection and stroked. Immediately, the hard length jerked in his grip, and Sherlock let out a pitiful wail.

“That’s it,” John told him sweetly. “Just let go.”

The first spurt of semen shot all the way to Sherlock’s chin, although the rest only got as far as his sternum. His orgasm seemed to go on and on, until Sherlock’s entire chest and stomach were streaked with come and his cries sounded more like sobs.

His prick, mostly soft now, leaked clearish fluid onto John’s fingers as the machine continued to fuck into him. Rubbing his prostate, probably—milking him dry. God, the toy must’ve seemed impossibly huge then, with Sherlock’s arsehole clenching around it.

Eventually, John abandoned his cock, although it still twitched uselessly against Sherlock’s belly. His sobs grew deeper, and his limbs shook in their restraints like bits of glass in an earthquake.

“It’s okay,” John said, practically cooing. He stroked Sherlock’s hair, his cheek, his shoulder. “You’re doing so well.”

Like that, with Sherlock becoming quickly oversensitive and overwhelmed, John let his mind run wild. Imagined black tentacles wrapping more tightly around Sherlock, keeping him immobile as another one—or two, or three—were stuffed into his tight little arse, pounding him relentlessly, moving him about like a ragdoll and using him like he was nothing but a hole to be fucked.

Sherlock tilted his head, peered up at John through his lashes. He looked wrecked: drying snot and sweat and spit and tears on his face, his chest sticky and come-covered, his eyes wide and pleading. Uncertain, maybe a touch fearful. Looking to John for help—needing John.

“It’s okay,” John told him, the words falling from his mouth in a breathless rush. “I’m here. I’ve got you.”

He couldn’t stand it anymore—he needed to come. He grabbed his cock and thrust once, twice, frantically into his fist, then buried his face in Sherlock’s hair as he began to come.

*

The muscle cramps, when Sherlock was finally untied, were apparently awful. Enough so that he lay perfectly still for several minutes, allowing John to massage the seizing muscles, and then consented to drinking multiple glasses of water and even eating a piece of toast without complaint.

Afterwards, he lounged on the bed and watched with heavy eyelids as John cleaned his soiled face and chest with a damp flannel and investigated the lovely pink indentions the ropes had left on Sherlock’s skin.

There was no damage, not even a hint of chafing, so John pressed soft, lingering kisses to three or four of the marks before he helped Sherlock turn onto his front so he could examine his arsehole. It was sore, the sensitive rim irritated, but there was no bruising or tearing. John fetched some salve from the loo and slathered it on, while Sherlock grunted and squirmed uncomfortably.

When that was all sorted, he joined Sherlock on the bed and, when Sherlock curled onto his side, plastered himself to Sherlock’s back: the big spoon to Sherlock’s little one. Sherlock hummed in contentment and wriggled as though savouring the sensation of John’s arms around him.

John kissed between his shoulder blades in response, feeling immeasurably fond of Sherlock, even in awe of him.

 _Tentacle sex without the tentacles_ , he thought. _You brilliant sod._

Although he still had a question or two he rather wanted answers to.

“You didn’t really buy a fucking machine, did you?” he asked. “You just… I dunno, rented one, yeah?”

Sherlock’s shoulders jumped, and John realised with a good bit of guilt that he’d been falling asleep before John had opened his bloody stupid mouth.

“Of course I bought it,” Sherlock answered, sounding indignant. He turned his head so John could see half of a rather impressive frown. “Why would anyone _rent_ a sex machine?”

“Because,” John said, and although he’d meant to remain calm—they weren’t yet past the afterglow, after all—his voice grew louder despite himself, “it’s fucking expensive. How much did that thing even cost? No, don’t tell me that. Never, ever tell me how much it cost. I’m not sure I could handle it. Instead, tell me what the bloody hell we’re going to do with it.”

“Exactly what I’ve been doing with it for the past week, I imagine: store it in 221C until one of us decides to make use of it.”

“You left a fucking machine in 221C? Good god, Sherlock, what would Mrs Hudson say if she knew?”

Sherlock shrugged, disturbing John’s head where it was pressed against his back. “Oh, of course she knew. She was initially against the idea, but once I explained my intentions, she seemed quite agreeable.”

“Explained your intentions?” John grimaced, horrified, and scooted backwards a bit, loosening his hold on Sherlock. “Christ, Sherlock—” Then he flinched, horror growing exponentially as another thought occurred. “Hang on. Where _is_ Mrs Hudson?”

Sherlock made a low noise of displeasure and forcibly tightened John’s arm around his waist. “I suggested she spend the weekend at her sister’s. Fortunately, she agreed.”

Well, John thought, at least she’d not had to listen to any of what he and Sherlock had just done. Although, to be fair, she’d already had to listen to rather a lot as it was.

So he allowed Sherlock to coax him back into a proper cuddle and shoved all thoughts of Mrs Hudson far, far from his mind, beginning to drift into a contented, post-coital doze.

Only to jerk out of it a moment later when Sherlock asked, “You enjoyed it, then?”

A self-conscious question, but John could hear the smug little smirk in Sherlock’s voice. The confidence that he knew full well that he had been right and he only wanted confirmation of it.

And, well. John could hardly lie, could he?

“Yes,” he admitted. “Yes, I really did. You brilliant bastard.”


End file.
